Chess and it's Applications
by InkySpectacles
Summary: There's a chessboard in 221B. Sherlock and Moriarty comparison character study with far too many game pieces. Becasue it's not chance, it's chess.


On Chess

**Proof I've been staring at the games cupboard too long.**

There is a chessboard in 221B- it has always been there, or perhaps Mycroft only dropped it off last week. But anyways, it's there, and it shouldn't be going anywhere soon.

(That is, unless Sherlock has the sudden urge to blow up something when John's left him on another…_date_, and Lestrade isn't answering his phone and thewallsareclosingin...)

It's a rather nice chessboard, with marble inlay squares and pieces carved out of shiny black and white stone that feels cool to the touch until the game is well underway and you haven't even noticed the time passing. But it's just a chessboard.

_Or it was. _

Until a madman- a proper madman, not just someone with a mind that works a bit differently than everyone else's, a madman that doesn't quite understand the concept of _lives_ and _deaths_ and the difference between the two- challenged Sherlock to play a game with him.

_Now it isn't anymore._

Because Sherlock can look at the chessboard and the pieces dance and twist until they have faces- even if the one of the sides is a little blurry.

_White moves first_.

**Pawns**

Sherlock knows pawns- he is forced to interact with them on an almost daily basis. The officers who cluster around crime scenes like ants, unable to make a move without their superior's say-so. The myriad nameless (but not story-less, not to him) faces on the street, oblivious to the invisible hands that silently guide their lives.

He supposed that Anderson and Donavon are pawns, too. For all their snide looks and whispered comments, they are oblivious to the plots unfurling like monkshood flowers around them. They are only pawns, in a game that is so much larger than they can even conceive. And they don't even realize it. Or perhaps they can't- when you're only moving forward, you've no way to see the myriad plans unfolding around you like the tesseract that was mentioned in the book Sherlock never bothered to read.

_Moriarty loves his pawns- the nameless hit men and burglars who are willing to throw away their lives or freedom for an appropriately sized paycheque. He has other pawns to- pawns that think that they're game-players, who have pawns of their own, and don't even realize how they're being used. _

_Until he needs to sacrifice one. _

**Rooks**

Lestrade, Sherlock decides, is a rook. He can be remarkably effective if he's pointed in the right direction, but he can only move so far, so fast. He is restricted as well- all those silly, dull things like protocol and regulations and what he calls _common sense_ (Sherlock calls it constricted thinking). Nevertheless, he is useful all the same, and things _would_ be a bit more difficult if he weren't around.

_There have been crooked cops ever since the first police force was established, and Moriarty has a few of his own. Even if they can't always help, it's just so easy to misplace a little bit of evidence or a single sheet of paperwork until sadly, the case just can't be solved. They never need to cover _his_ crimes, of course, but sometimes a pawn slips up. _

**Bishops**

There is no doubt in his mid concerning this-Mycroft is a bishop. Though he can slip behind and between and betwixt, and travel from corner to corner in less time than it takes to blink, he still sees everything in too-straight lines and in the name of _Queen and Country_, and he'll sometimes miss something. And when he does, it isn't just a "You-bloody-idiot-the-paperwork-is-going-to-take-weeks moment, it's a people-are-going-to-_die -_and-it's-your-fault moment. So Mycroft doesn't make very many corner-to-corner moves. A pity, really.

_Jim's bishops aren't as noticeable- they hide in plain sight beneath Armani suits and MP badges and CEO business cards. But they're there, and even if they have to move carefully so that their colours stay hidden, they're still dangerous._

**Queens**

Ridiculous slang aside, Sherlock knows where he is on the chessboard. Queens can twist and turn in every direction- there is nowhere he can't go, nothing he can't do. (Or _almost_ nothing, at least). Rules and laws and codes are meaningless when you can change direction at a moment's notice. And Queens don't let anything stop them. _Ever_. Because they don't care about protecting the king- they just want to take out _every damn piece_ that's in their way.

Sherlock twists the piece between his fingers before replacing it on the board.

_Moriarty is an equal here- his rules are for bending and his laws are for breaking. And he has marked his opponent. And don't you know what happens when two Queens decide to destroy each other?_

_Complete, utter carnage. _

_Are you prepared for that, Sherlock?_

**Knights**

Knights, now- knights are _interesting. _You never really notice them at first- they're shuffled off to the side, are far too often the player hasn't the faintest idea about how to use them to their full potential.

But sometimes…sometimes, if a player knows what he is doing, he can slip his knights over and under and sideways until they've cornered the king without their opponent even realizing it.

Sherlock has two knights, two people who constantly surprise him, two people who force him to remember that he's human, and that there are people who would do anything for him. There is a broken (but fixing, chips and cracks smoothing out as the game wears on) army doctor who shoots a man not twenty-four hours after meeting him, and a shy little mouse who can look at the dead and see what prompted them to make the final journey.

A mouse who catches him when he falls, and a doctor who runs with him as he prepares to rise again.

_That's the one little snag about tying people to you through blood and wealth and fear. Loyalty to one's employer only goes so far, and after a while, everything just gets so…boring. So he plays his games and neither winds or loses until that fateful day on the rooftop. He doesn't die, of course, but he's a bit indisposed, and rather shocked. After all of his work, all of him manipulations and conniving, after doing his best to solve the final problem, the person he thought of as a weakness and the one he didn't think of at all do something that he never expected._

_He's a bit put out at first,until he gleefully realizes that this means the game doesn't have to end, that they can play another round and perhaps this time will be different. And even if it isn't , it's rather amusing anyway._

**Kings**

Kings, in all honesty, are rather useless. Only slightly more mobile that pawns, they simply watch the game around them as if it doesn't even apply, moving when it's only necessary to prevent the game from ending. It's the other pieces- and players- that really matter.

T_h_e_r_e a_r_e _t_w_o_ k_i_n_g_s o_n_ t_h_e _b_o_a_r_d_- _o_n_e_ t_h_a_t_ b_u_r_n_s w_i_t_h_ a _c_o_l_d _w_h_i_t_e_ l_i_g_h_t, _a_n_d_ a_n_o_t_h_e_r _t_h_a_t_'_s _c_o_m_p_o_s_e_d _o_f _s_m_o_k_e_ a_n_d _s_h_a_d_o_w_,_ f_e_e_d_i_n_g _o_n _t_h_e_ g_l_o_w_ a_r_o_u_n_d_ i_t_. _T_h_e_ l_i_g_h_t_-_k_i_n_g_ a_n_d t_h_e _s_h_a_d_o_w_-_k_i_n_g_ w_a_t_c_h _a_s _t_h_e_ g_a_m_e_ t_w_i_s_t_s_ a_n_d _t_u_r_n_s_ a_r_o_u_n_d_ t_h_e_m_ b_u_t _n_e_v_e_r_ r_e_a_l_l_y_ e_n_ds_,_ e_v_e_n_ a_s_ s_o_m_e_ p_i_e_c_e_s_ a_r_e _t_a_k_e_n_ o_u_t _a_n_d_ r_e_p_l_a_c_e_d_, a_n_d _a_s _t_h_e_ d_i_f_f_e_r_e_n_t _p_l_a_y_e_r_s_ f_a_c_e _o_f_f _i_n _m_a_t_c_h_e_s_ t_h_a_t_ y_o_u _m_i_g_h_t_ t_h_i_n_k _w_e_r_e _l_i_f_e_-_a_n_d_-_d_e_a_t_h _u_n_t_i_l_ y_o_u _r_e_m_e_m_b_e_r _t_h_a_t _i_t_'_s _o_n_l_y_ a_ g_a_m_e_…_i_s_n_'_t_ i_t_? _B_u_t_ t_h_i_s_ g_a_m_e_ w_i_l_l_ c_o_n_t_i_n_u_e_ u_n_t_i_l _t_h_e_ b_o_a_r_d _i_s _w_o_r_n _a_w_a_y _a_n_d_ t_h_e _p_i_e_c_e_s _f_a_l_l_,_ t_h_e _k_i_n_g_s_ _l_e_f_t _s_t_an_d_i_n_g_ _i_n _a_ d_r_a_w_.

_Let the game begin._


End file.
